Statkraft advances its second wind power repowering project in Spain

The repowering of wind farms, a process that involves replacing existing wind turbines that are more than 20 or 25 years old with modern, higher-tech ones, is one of the challenges facing the energy sector today and one that brings the greatest benefits to the system and the environment.

This wind farm renovation has numerous advantages, one of the most significant being that it involves dismantling numerous old and obsolete wind turbines in favor of a smaller number of modern machines that are also more efficient and produce more energy. This generates more clean electricity, contributing to the reduction of polluting emissions, and significantly reduces their visual impact on the landscape.

One of the first wind farms in Spain to be repowered is the Malpica wind farm, in the Galician municipality of the same name. At the end of 2017, the company Enerfín—now part of Statkraft—completed the repowering of this wind farm, with the Xunta de Galicia and the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) as minority partners, using modern, more advanced technology. This reduced the number of wind turbines used by almost 90% and doubled its production.

Thus, the renewable energy facility, which began operating in 1997 and had 69 wind turbines, each with 225 kW and two with 750 kW of power, reduced the number of its machines to seven, each with 2.35 MW of power. The new wind turbines also have greater power, doubling their production to 65.9 GWh, enough to supply the average annual consumption of 18,000 homes.

Thanks to technological developments over the years, repowered wind farms are not only more efficient, generate more clean energy, and reduce their visual impact on the landscape, but they also allow for continued use of the best locations in terms of wind resources and existing electrical infrastructure. All of this is done more efficiently and with less impact on the environment, as the need to develop a new facility is avoided.

Statkraft is advancing its second repowering project in Spain, at the Montes de Cierzo I and II wind farms, located in the Autonomous Community of Navarre, in the municipalities of Tudela and Cintruénigo. This wind farm has an installed capacity of 60 MW and is comprised of 84 wind turbines, which produce 145 GWh of energy annually.

Specifically, Statkraft has already dismantled the first two phases of the wind farm, replacing 44 machines with 10 new wind turbines. This will make the wind farm more efficient, produce more clean energy, and minimize the facility's visual impact by reducing the number of wind turbines by 77%.

With these first two phases of the repowering, the installed capacity will increase from 30 MW, generating around 66 GWh/year, to approximately 64 MW, generating around 211 GWh/year. When the entire repowering project is completed, the installed capacity will increase by 50%, as the repowering projects as a whole include a connection extension. Therefore, the repowered wind farms as a whole will increase from 60 MW to around 90 MW of installed capacity, and production will increase from 145 GWh/year to around 300 GWh/year.

This repowering project has also been selected to receive public aid of up to €4.6 million from the Institute for Energy Diversification and Savings (IDAE), a subsidiary of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, within the framework of the Circular Repowering call for proposals, funded by Next Generation EU, which benefits wind power repowering projects that include circular economy measures.

Statkraft, a Norwegian company and Europe's leading renewable energy producer, has been present in Spain since 2018 and aims to deploy new renewable energy projects and boost wind power repowering as its wind farms become operational. It also has energy storage projects, through the installation of batteries in solar and wind installations or in stand-alone projects.